Newsdesk Archive
The team, led by Dr. Andrea Miglio from the University of Birmingham, has detected the resonant acoustic oscillations of eight ancient stars in the spectacular globular cluster Messier 4.
Related: Scientists create a new way to categorize music
A giant balloon could forever change the way astronomers look at the stars.
Technology under development by a 2014 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts award winner aims to raise a telescope directly into space, nestled inside a balloon the size of a football field.
Supermassive black holes lie at the heart of most galaxies, including the Milky Way, and are thought to be the glue that holds these galaxies together through their immense gravity.
But they are also some of the most enigmatic objects in the modern universe, and little is known about what feeds their unrelenting appetites.
Astronomers were not entirely sure what it is. If, as they suspect, the gas ball is the result of a supernova, then it's the most powerful supernova ever seen. In June of 2015, astronomers viewed a ball of hot gas billions of light years away that is radiating the energy of hundreds of billions of suns.
Robot explorers have found Mars to be a world of sulfur, acids, magnesium, iron and chlorine compounds, all of which are sunbaked and wrapped in a carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere.
But what would this complex and exotic brew smell like?
The source of a loud echoing bang has the Palmerston North police and fire service baffled.
A "deep resounding bang" was heard at about 10pm on Thursday, near Kelvin Grove.
Related: Strange object in sky over Ohio has internet in flutter
Black holes and wormholes are the ultimate fodder for science fiction. Need to travel through time? No problem! Build a wormhole. Want to see a different universe? Dive into a black hole!
In his iconic science fiction novel Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke describes how humanity first mistakes a large inbound spacecraft for an asteroid and then interacts with the mysterious alien ship. The founders of Made in Space, a small company with big dreams of manufacturing materials in space, are clearly fans of the book, because they have named their latest venture Project RAMA.
Four new elements now have names.
In December, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry officially recognized the discovery of elements 113, 115, 117 and 118, filling out the seventh row of the periodic table.
One of the most ambitious endeavors in quantum physics right now is to build a large-scale quantum network that could one day span the entire globe.
Related: Inventor of the internet wants it to be a more decentralised, secure, and less censored place
For 30 years, researchers have pursued the universal quantum computer, a device that could solve any computational problem, with varying degrees of success. Now, a team in California and Spain has made an experimental prototype of such a device that can solve a wide range of problems in fields such as chemistry and physics, and has the potential to be scaled up to larger systems.
Microsoft scientists have demonstrated that by analyzing large samples of search engine queries they may in some cases be able to identify internet users who are suffering from pancreatic cancer, even before they have received a diagnosis of the disease.
A cancer sufferer who was on the brink of death and riddled with 26 tumours has been “effectively cured” by radical therapy which triggers the body to heal itself.
Related: A Scientist's Dream Fulfilled: Harnessing The Immune System To Fight Cancer
Leiden theoretical physicists have proven that DNA mechanics, in addition to genetic information in DNA, determines who we are. Helmut Schiessel and his group simulated many DNA sequences and found a correlation between mechanical cues and the way DNA is folded. They have published their results in PLoS One.
Sex is never simple—even among lizards. Unlike mammals, the sex of central bearded dragons, large lizards found in eastern Australia, is determined by their chromosomes and the environment. If the eggs are incubated in high temperatures, male embryos turn into females. Such sex-reversed lizards still retain the chromosomal makeup of a male, but they develop into functional superfemales, whose output of eggs exceeds that of the regular females.
The move from life on land to life in the sea has led to the evolution of a new sense for sea snakes, a University of Adelaide-led study suggests.
The international team, led by researchers in the University's School of Biological Sciences, studied tiny and poorly understood structures on the heads of snakes called 'scale sensilla'.
Most land dwellers are familiar with bioluminescence only in the context of fireflies. But this natural phenomenon is much more widespread than those winged wonders let on. The vast majority of bioluminescent creatures on the planet are actually found in the ocean, ranging from bacteria to jellyfish to sharks.
How do organisms without brains make decisions? Most of life is brainless and the vast majority of organisms on Earth lack neurons altogether. Plants, fungi and bacteria must all cope with the same problem as humans -- to make the best choices in a complex and ever-changing world or risk dying - without the help of a simple nervous system in many cases.
How do you know when animals are working together? Just because two animals got something done jointly doesn’t mean they cooperated. They might have succeeded by dumb luck, or trial and error. Scientists who study animal minds, though, would really like to know when cooperation happens on purpose—and how animal partners manage to communicate with each other.
The amount and type of laughter between two people can potentially tell us much more than that they are sharing a joke. For example, friends laugh more than strangers, and shared laughter can be an indicator of sexual interest between a couple. But as onlookers, how well can we use the sound of laughter to make these kinds of inferences? A new study in PNAS is the first to investigate this and it turns out, regardless of our culture or where we live, we are pretty good at using laughter to identify the nature of other people’s relationships.
A research team from Oxford University have shown how different colours of light could affect our ability to sleep.
The researchers, led by Dr Stuart Peirson from Oxford's Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute were aiming to understand why exposing mice to bright light caused two - physically incompatible - responses.
When men and women work together, their brains may not take the same approach to cooperating, a new study suggests.
In the new study, the areas of the brain that lit up were synchronized when two guys worked together to do a task, and when two women did, although the areas were different in men and women. In pairs where there was one man and one woman, the brain activity didn’t sync up.
The “hobbits’” epic venture may have just gotten a lot longer.
The tale begins 700,000 years ago in the tropical grasslands on Flores Island, Indonesia. Volcanoes smolder in the distance and freshwater streams cut through the planes where komodo dragons, giant rats, and pygmy Stegodon, an extinct elephant cousin, roam. Now, researchers think that the pint-sized early humans known to scientists as Homo floresiensis may have been part of this fray.
If 'Lucy' wasn't alone, who else was in her neighborhood? Key fossil discoveries over the last few decades in Africa indicate that multiple early human ancestor species lived at the same time more than 3 million years ago. A new review of fossil evidence from the last few decades examines four identified hominin species that co-existed between 3.8 and 3.3 million years ago during the middle Pliocene.
Related: Neandertals: Ancient Stone Age builders had tech skills
A team of researchers belonging to the Prehistory Area of the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country has published the results of its recent investigations in the San Cristóbal Rock-shelter (Sierra de Cantabria. Laguardia. Álava, Basque Country).
Even today, the specter of the Black Death looms over society. The disease, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, began a deadly march through Eurasia starting in the mid-14th century, killing hundreds of thousands along the way.
Sewage treatment uses huge amounts of energy, accounting for up to 20 per cent of total electricity consumption in some cities – but what if that waste could be turned back into power?
A University of Queensland researcher has done just that, partnering with Queensland Urban Utilities to convert biogas into electricity.
FarmBot Genesis claims to be "humanity's first open-source CNC farming machine." It claims to make farming easy by letting users tell the robot what plants they've put in the ground and then take a step back while FarmBot takes over. So long, sweaty farm work. FarmBot even comes with an app that makes IRL farming a game. Remember Farmville?
European aviation firm Airbus recently announced the successful maiden flight of its high-flying, solar-powered drone—the Zephyr T.
The success of this initiative would mean that the company is flying in the right direction with their ambitious dream of replacing the current webwork of space-based satellites with what they are calling “high altitude pseudo satellites.”
A key component of a future gravitational wave observatory passed a series of tests with flying colors, while coming closer to experiencing true free fall than any other human-made object ever has. At the heart of the experiment is a two-kilogram cube of a high-purity gold and platinum alloy that is currently sailing through space almost completely free of any force other than gravity.
As humanity gobbles up natural resources to satisfy the demands of economic expansion, a growing number of enterprising corporations are eyeing outer space as the next source of valuable commodities.
In 2013, a mysterious crater appeared overnight on the Taimyr peninsula in Siberia, almost swallowing a group of reindeer herders. Measuring 13 feet wide and 330 feet deep, its possible causes were debated for months before most experts settled on either a collapse triggered by climate-change-induced melting permafrost or a methane gas explosion
Related: Releasing the pressure on the restless Earth
Implicit in much, if not all, modern environmental sentiment is the idea that the natural world has been despoiled by humans — and if we could just leave it alone, things would get better.
In the most precise study yet on vegetation growth trends across North America, researchers from America’s space agency have found that nearly a third of the land cover in Canada and Alaska has greened in recent decades as a result of climate change.
Massive fortifications and sunken ship-sheds thousands of years old have been found in Piraeus, the harbor city of Athens. The discoveries are part of the partially sunken port that played a pivotal role in the famous Battle of Salamis, against the Persian Empire, the naval conflict that saved Greece and the young democracy of Athens in 480 BCE.
An oracle well at least 1800 years old dedicated to the god Apollo has been discovered in Athens.
Though the powers of the oracle at Delphi and others were famously plied by the ancient Greeks, this is the first ancient oracular edifice to Apollo to have been found in Athens itself, Dr. Jutta Stroszeck, director of the Kerameikos excavation on behalf of the German Archaeological Institute at Athens, told Haaretz. The well would have been used for hydromancy, a method of divination by means of water.
Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a 6,000-year-old massacre that took place in Alsace, in north-eastern France.
The corpses of 10 individuals were found in one of 300 ancient silos, used to store grain and other food, according a team from the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap).
As the growth of cities worldwide transforms humans into an "urban species," many scholars question the sustainability of modern urbanization. But in reality there aren't much data on long-term historical urbanization trends and patterns.
Two leaded bronze artifacts found in northwestern Alaska are the first evidence that metal from Asia reached prehistoric North America prior to contact with Europeans, according to new Purdue University research.
Evidence from bison fossils has enabled researchers to shape a more accurate timeline for the so-called ‘ice-free corridor’ — a route for Pleistocene human and animal migrations between Beringia in the far north (near Alaska and the Yukon) and the rest of North America.
Thousands of years before the idea of flatpack furniture was invented, Stonehenge may have once stood as an impressive Welsh tomb - before being dismantled and reassembled 140 miles to the east.
This latest theory, put forward by Prof Mike Parker Pearson of the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, may put an end to centuries-long speculation about the meaning behind the Neolithic ring of standing stones in Wiltshire.
The pyramids are one of mankind's most visible architectural achievements, and now archaeologists with particle scanners are searching for secret chambers that have long remained invisible.
New technology is transforming modern archaeology, enabling researchers to make new discoveries in less invasive ways and putting those discoveries in better context.
Scientists at the European Space Agency have successfully engineered the quietest environment in the known universe, paving the way for deep-space gravitational wave detectors.
If there were an Olympics for ambition, the Dutch-based non-profit organization Mars One would surely be on the podium.
If you haven’t heard of them, (and we expect you have,) they are the group that plans to send colonists to Mars on a one-way trip, starting in the year 2026.
Related: Mars One Colony Project to Whittle List of Astronaut Hopefuls to 40
Our Earth consists of silicate rocks and an iron core with a thin veneer of water and life. But the first potentially habitable worlds to form might have been very different. New research suggests that planet formation in the early universe might have created carbon planets consisting of graphite, carbides, and diamond. Astronomers might find these diamond worlds by searching a rare class of stars.
Every year, thousands of tourists head to the Peruvian Amazon to take the plant medicine ayahuasca. But what does the powerful drink actually do, and what do local shamans think of the rise in its popularity?
Related: LSD-Like Drugs Are Out of the Haze and Back in the Labs
The Mediterranean diet, with a high fat content from olive oil and nuts, does not cause people to gain weight, a major study has found.
Researchers have developed a system that allows real-time optical and electrical observations of the gut's nervous system in a live animal. The system will allow researchers to study how this 'second brain' reacts to different drugs, neurotransmitters or diseases.
Next time you have a success, you’d better toast your genes as well as your supportive family, teachers and pets. Subtle variations across the genome can go a small way to predicting how likely a person is to have a prestigious job, a high income, to do better than their parents and to have a likeable personality – in short, to be successful.
A species of tropical fish has been shown to be able to distinguish between human faces. It is the first time fish have demonstrated this ability.
Australian scientists have used genetic material to pinpoint the origin of the deep-sea mushroom, an unusual gelatinous creature first dredged up near Tasmania in 1986.
In his writings, naturalist and intrepid explorer Alexander von Humboldt recounted how natives in Venezuela used horses to lure and trap electric eels. Many scientists thought it was just a tall tale, but a new paper lends credence to Humboldt’s account of eels aggressively leaping up and stunning the horses with a series of high-voltage discharges.
Birds have a light-dependent compass in their eyes. This compass gives them information about the direction of the Earth's magnetic field. Researchers have now elucidated how this compass works at the molecular level.
It's a familiar story—the mighty dinosaurs dominated their prehistoric environment, while tiny mammals took a backseat, until the dinosaurs (besides birds) went extinct 66 million years ago, allowing mammals to shine. Just one problem—it's not true.
The Neanderthal genome included harmful mutations that made the hominids around 40 percent less reproductively fit than modern humans, according to new estimates. Non-African humans inherited some of this genetic burden when they interbred with Neanderthals, though much of it has been lost over time. The results suggest that these harmful gene variants continue to reduce the fitness of some populations today. The study also has implications for management of endangered species.
Stone Age people from the Aegean Sea region moved into central and southern Europe some 8,000 years ago and introduced agriculture to a continent still dominated at the time by hunter-gatherers, scientists say.
The bones of giant steppe bison and clues left by their ice age hunters have led scientists to conclude that people likely colonized North America south from Alaska along the Pacific coast, and not through the Rocky Mountains, according to a new study.
A new look at ancient bones with the latest DNA technology has confirmed Aboriginal Australians as the continent's first people.
Researchers say the findings overturn a 2001 paper that argued the oldest known Australian human remains found near Lake Mungo in New South Wales were from an extinct lineage of modern humans that occupied the continent before Aboriginal Australians.
Take a leaf out of this book. A common desert moss sucks water directly out of the air instead of from the ground. The discovery could be used to inspire ways of collecting clean drinking water in developing countries.
Most desert plants, including cacti, rely on extensive root systems to mop up scarce groundwater. But the desert moss Syntrichia caninervis collects fresh water straight from the atmosphere.
AeroFarms is on track to produce 2 million pounds of food per year in its 70,000-square-foot facility in Newark, under construction about an hour outside Manhattan.
Dwarfed by huge jets all around, the mini-plane Thor was nonetheless an eye-catcher at the Berlin air show this week—the small Airbus marvel is the world's first 3D-printed aircraft.
A radical new process that allows hydrogen to be efficiently sourced from liquid formic acid could be one step forward in making the dream of hydrogen-powered cars an economic reality.
The 100 candidates on the shortlist to establish a human colony on the planet Mars are to undergo tests as part of a new phase of the selection process, the project organisers said Monday.
Related: Mars Will Be Closer to Earth Tonight Than It's Been in a Decade
A smattering of water is buried deep inside the Moon and it arrived during the satellite's very early history, a new study concludes, when asteroids plunged into churning oceans of magma.
A few decades from now, asteroids may be flying themselves to mining outposts in space, nobly sacrificing their abundant resources to help open the final frontier to humanity.
Related: This is dyprosium—if we run out of it, say goodbye to smartphones, MRI scans and hybrid cars
A few days from now, a US spacecraft carrying a 200kg titanium vault crammed with delicate electronic equipment and fitted with a vast array of solar panels will sweep over the poles of Jupiter before entering into orbit around the giant planet.
Galaxies "waste" large amounts of heavy elements generated by star formation by ejecting them up to a million light years away into their surrounding halos and deep space, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.
Astrophysicists from the University of Birmingham have captured the sounds of some of the oldest stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, according to research published today in the Royal Astronomical Society journal Monthly Notices.
New research into an ancient observatory in Mexico created by the Maya has discovered that it did more than track the Sun’s movements, it tracked those of the planet Venus as well.
Scientists have long suggested that the ancient civilization from Central America had detailed knowledge of the solar system and of astronomy.
An international research team led by Assoc. Professor Akira Ichikawa with the Institute for Advanced Research at Nagoya University have discovered a monumental platform (measuring 70 meters by 60 meters with four tiers) constructed using a variety of stones, at San Andrés, an archaeological site in El Salvador, shedding new light on the socio-cultural development of the Maya people who lived there.
Bada Valley (also known as Napu Valley) is a megalithic site situated in the Lore Lindu National Park, in the District of Poso, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Although the megaliths have yet to be formally catalogued and documented (as of 2001) several hundred of them have been located in and around the national park.
Giant squid are the stuff of nightmares. They were even one of the deadly dangers in Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, attacking the Nautilus in a group and carrying off one of the crew.
While diving off the Micronesian archipelago of Pulau, evolutionary biologist Giacomo Bernardi witnessed something unusual and was lucky enough to capture it on film. An orange-dotted tuskfish (Choerodon anchorago) uncovered a clam buried in the sand by blowing water at it, picked up the mollusk in its mouth and carried it to a large rock 30 yards away.
Scientists in the United States are trying to grow human organs inside pigs.
They have injected human stem cells into pig embryos to produce human-pig embryos known as chimeras.
Scientists have taken a “very positive step” towards creating a universal vaccine against cancer that makes the body’s immune system attack tumours as if they were a virus, experts have said.
A Canadian study has discovered that coral is able to effectively record events in human history due to its ability to absorb the toxic metals released into the environment as a result of naval battles fought in their vicinity.
The sweeping reefs growing off 200 steamy miles of remote Australian coastline—from Cairns to Cape Melville, home to sugar farms and dive resorts—contained some of the least damaged corals growing in one of the world’s best marine parks. Until now.
Chile’s solar industry has expanded so quickly that it’s giving electricity away for free.
Spot prices reached zero in parts of the country on 113 days through April, a number that’s on track to beat last year’s total of 192 days, according to Chile’s central grid operator.
Norway has become the first country in the world to commit to zero deforestation.
The Norwegian parliament pledged the government’s public procurement policy will become deforestation-free after a committee of MPs recommended imposing regulations to ensure the state did "not contribute to deforestation of the rainforest".
While the world’s forest cover is being unabashedly destroyed by industrial agriculture, cattle ranching, illegal logging and infrastructure projects, Thailand has found a unique way to repair its deforested land: by using a farming technique called seed bombing or aerial reforestation, where trees and other crops are planted by being thrown or dropped from an airplane or flying drone.
Do you ever find yourself worrying about an upcoming situation, even though similar past experiences have worked out fine? Or do you worry about your relationship or finances in a way that is out of proportion with your actual circumstances? These are classic symptoms of anxiety.
More than a dozen tunnels have been found beneath Cornwall’s countryside, dating back some 2,400 years. But why do they exist?
I’d come to nearly the very tip of Cornwall, the southwestern peninsula of England, in search of an ancient mystery: the underground passages built here some 2,400 years ago.
Prehistoric paintings and engravings of animals and hunting scenes have been discovered in the Atxurra cave, on the Spanish side of the Basque country. The Palaeolithic parietal artwork is located 300m deep in the cave. Difficulty in accessing the paintings is the reason why they had so far not been identified, even though the cave was first uncovered in 1929.
Most Christians believe that Jesus was born and died in the Middle East. However, there is a small group of people in Japan who believe a completely different story.
Some Japanese researchers think that Jesus’ history is different from what is generally believed.
Stonehenge began life as an impressive Welsh tomb which was dismantled and shipped to Wiltshire, archaeologists now suspect.
Experts have known for some time that the smaller bluestones of the 5000-year-old Neolithic monument were brought 140 miles from the Preseli Mountains in Wales.
Medieval manuscripts that have been hidden from view for centuries could reveal their secrets for the first time, thanks to new technology.
Dutch scientists and other academics are using an x-ray technique to read fragments of manuscripts that have been reused as bookbindings and which cannot be deciphered with the naked eye.
What mysteries might still be hidden under Egypt's pyramids? A team accompanied by Egypt's former antiquities minister and famed archaeologist Zahi Hawass are testing a new scanner on the Great Pyramid of Giza on Thursday, hoping that modern technology could help unlock ancient secrets buried deep beneath the stone.
The scanner, which uses subatomic particles known as muons to examine the 4,500 year-old burial structure, was first set up at the site last year and will complete its data collection this month.
One of Europe's smallest states, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, cast its eyes to the cosmos on Friday, announcing it would draw up a law to facilitate mining on asteroids.
Extracting precious metals, rare minerals and other valuable commodities on passing asteroids is a staple of science fiction, but Luxembourg says incentives are urgently needed to turn this dream into fact.
The exoplanet Kepler-62f could be an oasis for life as we know it, but direct observations of its atmosphere are needed.
In good news for alien-seekers, scientists have come up with more evidence that a distant rocky world is likely habitable -- even given a range of atmospheric conditions.
In order to determine how fast quantum technologies can ultimately operate, physicists have established the concept of "quantum speed limits." Quantum speed limits impose limitations on how fast a quantum system can transition from one state to another, so that such a transition requires a minimum amount of time (typically on the order of nanoseconds). This means, for example, that a future quantum computer will not be able to perform computations faster than a certain time determined by these limits.
At first glance, Anthony and Vanessa Genau’s home in a subdivision beneath the San Gabriel Mountains here is like any other gracious new suburban dwelling, with an open-plan living space, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances.
With a combination of rooftop solar panels, smart thermostats, advanced water heaters and other high-efficiency features, the homes are all built with a similar goal: to make at least as much energy as they use over a year.
The question, ‘Where do domestic dogs come from?’, has vexed scholars for a very long time. Some argue that humans first domesticated wolves in Europe, while others claim this happened in Central Asia or China. A new paper, published in Science, suggests that all these claims may be right.
Snails use two brain cells to make "complex decisions", a team of scientists has found.
Researchers at the University of Sussex said one cell told the snail if it was hungry while the other cell told it if food was present.
For the past four months, researchers working at the Postojna Cave in Slovenia have been waiting for a batch of eggs laid by an iconic salamander to hatch. The first two hatchlings have finally emerged, exciting the scientific community and captivating the entire country.
Young fish become hooked on eating plastic in the seas in the same way that teenagers prefer unhealthy fast food, Swedish researchers have said.
Their study, reported in Science, found exposure to high concentrations of polystyrene makes perch larvae favour the particles over more natural foods.
In the Indian Ocean off the coast of Sri Lanka, pygmy blue whales are changing their tune — and they might be doing it on purpose.
From 2002 to 2012, the frequency of one part of the whales’ calls steadily fell, marine bioacoustician Jennifer Miksis-Olds reported May 25 at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. But unexpectedly, another part of the whales’ call stayed the same, she found.
It is known as “the Gateway to the Underworld” by local people who fear to go near the massive crater that suddenly appeared in the frozen heart of Siberia.
And they are right to be afraid.
The Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction 66m years ago was the most recent of five similar crises to have devastated life on Earth over the last 540m years. It rapidly killed off an estimated 76% of species around the globe, including, most famously, the dinosaurs.
T. rex may have had lips. Yes, you read that right. Lips.
Robert Reisz, a paleontologist at the University of Toronto, is challenging the long-standing image of meat-eating theropod dinosaurs such as T. rex.
A construction project in Grahamstown, South Africa has turned up a collection of fossils dating back 360 million years, some of which represent previously unknown species.